Just look around

On my daily walk to the mailbox with the doggies.  I notice this guy!

I love when I look in the snow covered weeds and see a tree that has made it!  Not sure when he was planted, but after further examination, he is a healthy little guy!  I think this one will make it! (Sorry, got excited when I saw him and had to tell the blog, hehehe)

I took the above picture yesterday January 30th.  Today January 31st, it is currently 52 degrees.  This has been one winter to put in the history books folks.  We normally have a January thaw, but this year, it snows on the weekends and melts during the week.  (Can't complain it has been great for weekend sledding fun!)

Cheese Bug

I thought I should share the gifts we made for our Homemade Hometown Christmas back in December, (now that it's the end of January...) If you don't mind, I will toot my own horn, they are pretty cool!  I have had friends say they want me (Hubby) to make them one!  And when I say Hubby, well, he put a lot of labor into making mine!  It was my idea, but with all the tools out to do it, he found the inspiration.

First up - The Cheesehead. This is the gift that Hubby made for our good friend, Aaron.  He has family that lives near Green Bay, so he loves Spotted Cow beer and them Cheeseheads (And yes, he is pretty upset about the Packers lost last weekend).  Since we don't know how to brew beer, we choose the simpler of the 2 loves.  A Cheesehead!

Not sure if I should be called a bad blogger or just inexperienced, because I don't have pictures of how these gifts were made, shit, I didn't even take a picture of the final product, I took this picture off of Facebook.  (Thanks Leigh!)

How was it made?  It is made out of Styrofoam packaging from an old computer box I had in our storage area.  Hubby shaved it into the shape of the cheesehead. Then we hot glued a baseball hat to the inside and spray painted.  And there you have it!  I must admitted he looks pretty good in it!

The Gift I made...
First, I would like to mention my first idea failed!  I wanted to make this...

A tiki torch wine bottle. I drew, Sarah, and she pinned it!  Her and I and a couple other friends had went on a wine tasting trip the year before. It just seemed like the prefect gift!  So, not totally reading the directions, I based my torch on - first - color and then on wine brand.  I wanted blue like in the picture and the winery that we had visited had a beautiful blue bottle, YAY!  Meant to be, right! Well long story short, the wine neck wasn't right, and I couldn't find the correct size copper pieces to fit inside.  So when Hubby and I tried to make them, we kept breaking the bottles...

So plan B.  (With only 4 days til the party!  Talk about pressure!) But, I had an idea all ready in motion! During the fall I saw in a magazine these really cool recycled bowling ball garden Ladybugs.  So, while out to lunch with a friend that loves bowling, I asked if she had some old bowling balls she didn't want any more.  She looked at me weird and said, "Sure, please take these heavy, awkward things I don't have any where to store!"  So would you believe I already had them in my trunk before plan A failed...  Maybe this was more meant to be...

And here is one of the final products!

This one is actually mine. My bowling friend game me 3, if I was going to go through all this trouble to make one... and I had 3 balls, well I was going to make them all at once!  Which is cool, my garden got a little Christmas gift this year too!

What did we get in return...  Funny, Hubby and Aaron drew each others names.  He made Hubby a calendar of our group's annual canoeing trip.

"Because sometimes you wish the best weekend of the summer could last all year long."

Yes, it says Canudists... Inside joke, we really don't canoe nude! 

And his lovely bride drew my name.  Stefanie is the knitter of the group.  She made me these.

Which are awesome!  These are the best dish towels ever!  They are soft, however, they are tough enough to scrub the pots and pans!  Love them!  (She made me 4, however one was in use, surprised I had these 3 clean!)

It was a great night, with a lot of creative ideas!  It turned out great. I'm pretty sure the census was to make our gifts next year.  I better get to thinking...  I think I have set the bar high!

Moving to Digital

So I realized I no longer lived in 1982.  Well I guess that would be the era of cassette tapes (Which I do still own too many of, and I don't even have a way to listen to them, hmm, is that a sign that I have a hoarder complex??)  But I currently do live in the world of CDs.  My hubby and I finally made the plunge and bought an iPod.

What was the motivation to jump into the world of digital?  Well our new car and our road trip to Florida. Our car now has the techonology to accept this new toy.  And what road trip is without jams for 18 plus hours of highway driving!

So what have I been up to?  Converting our CD collection in to a digital collection.  The first night of owning  our new toy...  I spent 4 hours and download 50 albums!   I'm kind of excited to see how many albums we have...  It will be interesting, I can't wait to pull some old school cds out of the closet!   I'll have to update with a total of albums and hours it took.

Next on list of techonolgy advance toys would be a camera.  Currently all we have are our phones. (Hence the quailty of the pictures taken/posted on this here blog).  However, hubby isn't on the same plan.  Time will tell!

It's Rough...

... to be without an alarm clock for 16 whole days!  OK, let me clarify, an alarm clock that buzzes at 5:30 in the morning, not the 4 legged alarm, I don't mind her (sometimes).

This is the life:

Or is this your cup of tea?

Either way the sun was shining, even though it was chilly most of the time we were there. It's nice to hang out with family and be lazy!

What did we do?

Took our top off

The 4 Legged Alarm - Lola

Saw the Grandparents, who got a huge kick out of driving around topless!



And then visited a special grandma with her youngest Great, Grandson.

Now that I'm back to reality, I'm working on the next trip...  Will it be back to Florida, or Vegas, or Texas, or where??  Wished I had it booked, because no vacation day until Memorial day is way to long!  Now, let's see if I can get back into the groove of this blogging thing...

Homemade Hometown Christmas

Nothing like celebrating the season with all the best family and friends in your hometown!

First up! Our annual Ugly Sweater Party!  The nine of us girls get together every Christmas and dote our ugliest sweaters for a night of love and laughs.  This year will be especially fun, our challenge this year was that our gifts had to be homemade!  And let me tell you, Hubby and I went all out.  I can't post pics of the gifts on here (well because I haven't taken any) but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag...  Someone unexpectedly might read this today...  But I can't wait to see their faces when they open their gifts.  This year we drew names.  Boys drew a boy and girls drew a girl.  It's going to be a great night, I'm pretty sure my stomach will hurt from all the laughing!

Then the next two days will be with our family doing traditional Christmas things, eat a lot of great food, watch the kiddo open their gifts from Santa, watch football, laugh and be merry with family!

And then it we will be off to Florida to enjoy some hopefully 80 degree days.

To all of you, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Or better yet Merry New Year!!!

Let me leave you with not the best picture, but a picture of my hometown lit with Christmas lights.  1) Wish I had a better camera and 2) I could take better pictures...

The Engagement

Has it really been 5 years!  When this happened!

It was five years ago this week when the man of my dreams took that step and ask me the words all us little girls dreamt of hearing! 

"Hey, you want to go to the jewelry store today and pick out that ring?"

What, that wasn't what you expected...  Well that is just the way he and I are.  We had dated 10 years before this moment.  And I'm so thankful that our friend capture it, even if it was on a camera phone from 1982, LOL.
I love that this picture capture us trying on the ring that we walked away with and so truly love!  It fits us, like the way we got officially engaged. I wouldn't change it for the world.
I remember planning our wedding through out that following year.  It was simple and perfect and everything just fell into to place.  From the date to the venue to all the details that evolved.
But one thing I treasure and remember the most about that year during planning was how much in love we were (and still are!).  It was like we were just dating again.  We were two love stuck birds. 
I will always cherish those feeling and go back there when things get tough for us.  Marriage isn't easy!  We've had our ups and down in our 5 years of marriage, but they have made us understand each other more.  I think the hardest learning curve I had was that sometimes it isn't just about me.  There is another person that is affected by the plans or actions that you take.  It's about the team that make you up and that you are trying to build.
We have come a long way, not only in the up coming 5 years of marriage, but also in the up coming being together through all the UPS AND DOWN of 15 years. 

Animal Hats

The craze! 
Yes they are cute.  See cute little girl below:

She is so cute with her puppy dog hat and gloves to match.  So sweet.

(Random little girl picture from Internet)

People!  Please refrain from this:

Not cute on an adult!  (Picture of a random guy off the Internet).

Why adults think wearing these are cute, fun, is beyond me...  Now, I'm the farthest thing from a fashion consultant, but please don't make this same mistake!

This is my public service announcement.  I won't make many of them.